


Kill Rourke, Save the World

by NoFicByHalves



Category: Tomb Raider & Related Fandoms, Tomb Raider (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Character Swap, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical language, Established Relationship, F/M, Lara Croft is a human trash fire, Lux Raider - Freeform, kind of, lartis - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-16 22:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19327345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoFicByHalves/pseuds/NoFicByHalves
Summary: Inspired by the oil refinery bit of Shadow of the Tomb Raider. AU where Kurtis is the other half of the dynamic duo and Lara is a very different kind of trash fire. Oneshot, established LC/KT, classics-esque Lara





	Kill Rourke, Save the World

“He’s not going to answer, Lara.”

A stunned “What?” came tinny over the radio speakers.

Rourke stared at his captive. “He’s dead,” he drawled, “Now you can add your little friend to the list of people you’ve gotten killed.”

“Fuck you Rourke!”

“If you want to pick up his body, it’s at the refinery.” Rourke switched off the radio, cutting off Lara’s reply, and considered the man in the cell. His prisoner was lying – no, _lounging_ – against the wall, dark hair hanging in his eyes and an amused smirk on his face.

“Not even trying to get rescued are you? Pathetic,” Rourke sneered.

The prisoner snorted. “Much more fun to watch you hang yourself, actually.”

“You could have said something, give her a little encouragement.”

“Yeah, and if she thinks I’m still alive, the place might still be standing when she’s done.”

He could see the pieces coming together in Rourke’s mind, startled panic overtaking triumph on his face.

The prisoner stood and sauntered towards the bars, pointedly glancing at a nonexistent watch on his wrist. “I’d say you’ve got about… ten minutes.”

Kurtis Trent grinned.

“Maybe. If you run.”

***

“Cardinal Two, I’ve got a lock on the target!”

A helicopter searchlight flooded Lara’s vision, nearly blinding her. Across the bridge a turret on wheels rolled up to cover her exit. She dived behind a pillar in a hail of gunfire, but there was nowhere to run, not unless she wanted to become thoroughly perforated.

A rope line to the right caught her eye, so before she could think about it too hard she was leaping through the air, helicopter buzzing angrily behind her. She caught the rope and whizzed along it, a tanker below going up in flames from the hail of artillery fire aimed at her. She stumbled when she landed, flaming wreckage all around her, but kept moving forward, upward, across a gap and up a metal tower with goons on her left and the helicopter circling like a demented bumblebee. The tower careened sideways – was that missile fire? – she had no time to think and even less to care as her grip slipped and she flew out and down, hitting the water far below like a truck to her spine.

Time seemed endless underwater, swirling and bending around her like light. Wasn’t that funny, how light and time always seemed to twist around each other but never touched, exactly like oil and water. Speaking of, even the water itself was on fire, as it deserved to be because there were far too many living people between her and one dead man, and they all deserved to fucking pay.

Her fingers hadn’t quite stopped tingling but she shoved herself to the surface anyway. She reached blindly for a weapon and ended up with a knife instead of a gun, but life was funny like that she supposed. It still worked on the man scrambling on the shore, who fired wildly, missed entirely, and dropped his gun like an amateur. She swapped her weapon for his, taking down the two marginally more competent lackeys up ahead, and headed for the courtyard.

She heard the crack-boom of a sniper rifle and scrambled for cover. The man wielding it was high off the ground but she was faster than his gun and deadlier at short range. She reached for a – not a knife she left her knife down by the water that’s a handgun – but that didn’t matter because it was just as effective, and turned a hand over the railing into a boot in his face into a bullet in his brain before he had time to scream, much less turn his lumbering leviathan of a weapon.

There was something screaming on the radio but she couldn’t hear it over the screaming of the helicopter returning to add insult to injury. She abandoned her vantage point for a wide metal bell on the ground that screeched when shot but kept her breathing. Her shots swung in wide arcs across the refinery walls in an attempt to hit anything that might die before the pilot loaded another clip, which seemed to do something based on the explosion and the screams but oh hell it started up again so she curled up small and stared in amazement that she still had all her fingers and wasn’t bleeding out of too many new orifices somehow.

When the rattling stopped she pulled herself up and tried again, succeeding at two more shouts and a louder explosion that shook the ground beneath her feet. It turned into another, and another, all across the upper walkway until the air crackled with ozone. When she looked up, not only was everything she expected on fire, but the helicopter had somehow caught as well. Instead of bullets, it was ejecting flaming debris every which way like the fiery ball of death it was always meant to be, and she absently thought that laughing wasn’t the appropriate response to this but here she was nevertheless. With sheer force of hatred, the wreckage plummet out of the sky directly at her, and sent her flying.

She hit the ground and tumbled. Her vision swam, bright spots of flame swirling across it. The sound of gunshots cracked through the haze, and she struggled for cover and a weapon out of sheer instinct. She hauled herself to her feet, pointing the pistol at the looming figure over her.

“Croft? Easy, it’s just me.”

Lara recognized his voice, and against her wishes tears welled up in her eyes. The gun in her hand fell with a clatter at her feet. Moments later, she was in his arms.

“I thought you _died_ , you idiot,” she mumbled into his shoulder.

“I’m going to pretend I’m not offended by that,” Kurtis said.

“Would it have killed you to send any message of any kind?”

“You know how warm and fuzzy it makes me feel when you terrorize small armies for my sake.”

“Your ego is really not a priority right now, Kurtis”

“So sorry, back to our regularly scheduled programming of Lara’s ego all the – ouch!” he broke off as Lara poked him in the ribs.

She stepped away and pretended not to be sniffing or wiping her eyes. “Where’s Rourke, then?”

“Headed west, in a helicopter I think. Really freaked out when I reminded him what you’re like. Kept him from turtling, at least.”

Lara sighed, picked up her discarded pistol, and began checking it over. “West it is, then.”

Kurtis stopped her with a gentle hand beneath her chin. “Hey. I’m sorry for worrying you. And I’m glad you’re okay.”

He kissed her, and she smiled against his lips.

“For what it’s worth, it’s been a rough few days, and you looked like you needed…” He gestured vaguely at the wanton destruction all around them. “…this.”

“Fair enough,” she said, because while it was a bizarre, stupid, yet sweet thing, it was not the first he’d done and she doubted it would be the last.

Kurtis glanced around, picking through abandoned weaponry before settling on an unreasonably large rifle. “So, kill Rourke, save the world?”

Lara grinned. “Kill Rourke, save the world.”

**Author's Note:**

> I regret absolutely nothing, I encountered this scene and Kurtis just... happened.


End file.
